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clubland’s fiercest live shows
A I R @ F I E L D DAY, LO N D O N With mud soup underfoot, we come to rest at Field Day’s Return Of The Rural tent, planting our feet with a squelch. After a brief but welcome appearance, the sun sets and the tent lights are turned on, ambient chords wafting the breeze. Five men dressed in white file onto the stage. One arrives at a huge bank of synths and a classic Rhodes, while another is handed a guitar. They are JeanBenoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin, and this is Air. It’s been 20 years since their international debut and to celebrate, tonight’s French headliners deliver a jaunt through eight albums of hits. Behind them, three huge reflective letters spell out ‘AIR’, bouncing white lights into the tent canopy. With the ghostly piano riff of ‘Venus’, lighthouse beams scour the sky before ‘Alpha Beta Gaga’ ups the tempo and an electric ‘Sexy Boy’ turns the crowd into a grooving snog-fest. But it’s the wondrous chill to psychedelic thrill of the seminal ‘La Femme D’Argent’ that gets the whole place rocking, and leaves everybody walking on Air. PHIL DUDMAN
THYLACINE @ LE TRIANON, PARIS
Diesel power SPEEDING THROUGH FRANCE on the Eurostar turns out to have been the perfect lead-up to tonight’s show at the beautiful Le Trianon concert hall, where heat rises from the packed floor to the ornate balconies above. The buzz is for 23-year-old William Rezé, aka Thylacine, whose stunning debut ‘Transsiberian’ was made on the 9,288km train trip from Moscow to Vladivostok. After the ambient station sounds of ‘Introduction’ (typical of the sampled field recordings in the album), it’s time to embark on a journey through the mesmeric chants of ‘Irkutsk’, the driving
LIVE BITES
ROISIN MURPHY
[[1L]] AUGUST 2016
‘Belobezvodnoe’ and ‘Train’, a techno rhythm built from turning wheels and remixed by Michael Mayer, to the dancefloor-igniting ‘Moskva’ and the hypnotic tech of ‘Obsession’. But that’s only half the trip. Dropping ‘Home’, a 10-minute track “where I can improvise, just close my eyes and do something”, Rezé unleashes a superb sax solo while tweaking his flashing patchwork of controllers. Throughout the mature, epic blends of dark house and harmonious techno we bear witness to a mindblowing light show. Projections shimmer on two screens made from
Warp stalwarts Plaid are live in Gretchen, Berlin on July 23 ... Club Cheval take their show to Washington’s U Street Music Hall on July 27 ... The Orb celebrate the 25th anniversary of their 1991
classic ‘Adventures Of The Underworld’ at Electric Brixton on July 29 ... Catch Thylacine at Foreztival 2016 in SaintÉtienne, France on August 12-14, with his Angers homecoming show at Le Chabada scheduled for
dangled white threads, from trippy wireframe cityscapes to videos from his trip and train sleepers thundering past. Lightning flashes skywards as he strikes the drum pads during two flawless percussion solos. “On stage is my home”, says Rezé post-show, having made for the merch stand to chat to fans; but “the hardest thing is to understand what a track can be [when it’s] live.” This from a 23-yearold whose wish to “discover new ways to play something” sums up the quality of both his debut LP and tonight’s incredible performance. PHIL DUDMAN
November 5 ... Expect more than a little theatre at Róisín Murphy’s special performance at the Globe Theatre, London on August 15 ... Thunder Disco present Bicep live at Sub Club, Glasgow on August 19 ... In Ibiza? Check out
Solomun Live at Destino hosting live shows from Henrik Schwarz on July 28, Mathew Johnson on August 11 and Rodriguez Jr. on August 25 ... And don’t miss Disclosure live at Titanic Slipway, Belfast on August 24.
BICEP LIVE @ AVA FESTIVAL & CONFERENCE, T13, BELFAST Midday, and AVA is underway. As bursts of bass seep into the Conference, local heroes Bicep describe the concept behind the monstrous setup making its European debut tonight: “Weekdays it was the studio, weekends it was DJing. They felt like two separate things.” Hence Bicep Live, a studio-cum-live-show hybrid. Despite the technical issues that plagued their live US debut, Bicep appear relaxed in their hardware fortress. A floaty vocal builds and distorts before bleeding into thumping analogue techno. Soon ‘Just’ has a girl cutting shapes ’90sstyle. The duo switch between kicks and breaks, familiar hooks combining with an ever-evolving soundscape and adding depth to Bicep’s canon. The melody of Rank 1’s ‘Airwave’ brings the set to a close. Were this any other act, a commercial trance classic might be considered a risky move. But Bicep’s home crowd – naturally – lap it up. GORDON STRIBLING
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AMANDINE LAURIOL, CAROLINA FARUOLO, SIMON HUTCHINSON
Rising French star proves just the ticket